King Errant Part 11

Babar hesitated. It was the first time his sister had mentioned her cousin's name to him; but now that the subject had been broached, might it not be better to take the opportunity offered? He had the portrait with him. Why not have it out and have done with it? After all it was a fitting place; the green alp all starred with flowers reminded him of the Andijan meadows and they of the green enamel frame starred with ruby, turquoise, amethyst, topaz.

"I have something here," he said, fumbling in his fur coat, "that I have meant to give thee for some months; but--I know not why--" So he began haltingly; then warming to his subject told her in his own inimitable way, every tiny touch giving life to the picture, how and where he had found what he finally placed in her hands.

The girl who had listened coldly looked at it still more chillily.

"'Twas not meant for me," she said at last, and her tone was as ice--"And he prized it little, since he left it behind him."

Babar with the returned miniature in his hand, stared at her in confused amaze, feeling that, of a truth, women were kittle cattle.

One could never count on them--and all these months he had been afraid of exciting a storm of tears!

Distinct ill-usage was in his voice as he said gravely: "But thou hast not seen the verses writ behind, and they are good. I stake my word they are excellent and correct in every elision, every poetic licence."

It may have been the bathos in the lad's last eager protest which kept the pathos of poor Baisanghar's words from making full mark, which kept the girl's lips from quivering overmuch, which kept the mist of tears from overflowing to her cheeks as the words fell on the flower-scented air. So little, to frail humanity, turns grief to laughter and smiles to tears.

Anyhow Dearest-One sat silent, and a faint smile curved her thin red lips.

"Yea!" she said softly, "they are good verses; but he was ever a poet."

And then suddenly the poetry which lies hid at the heart of all sorrow, all longing, all deprivation, surged on her and her face lit up with pa.s.sionate feeling. "Give it me back, brotherling! give it me back. Let us leave it here! Here! on this high unknown place among G.o.d's flowers! Here! amid ice and snow! Here! overlooking the Palace where he would have died. Here! close to high heaven where there is understanding!" Her voice had risen as her thought rose, and now rang out joyous, triumphant. "Lo! the _Heft-Aurang_ will look down on my face night after night and the pole star will point the way to him.... Ah! Baisanghar! have patience, have patience! love will point the way!..."

She laid the portrait face upwards to the clear blue suns.h.i.+ny sky on a cold slab of ice that filled up--and looked as if it had filled up for centuries of chill summers and frost-bound winters--the wide clefts of the rock beside her; then stood up and stepped down amid the flowers, tearless, radiant.

"Come, brother!" she said. "It grows late. Let us descend, they will be waiting."

But Babar looked meditatively at the pictured face, and then at the one before him transfigured by emotion.

"So that is love!" he said at last with a curious impersonality in his tone. "Truly it is wonderful; and after all there is not so much difference between it and tears!"

So in a flood, came back to him that one glimpse he had had in the Crystal Bowl of his cousin's face. He saw it again clearly; he seemed to hear his voice telling of the frightened maiden. He had never thought of her since; such things pa.s.sed quickly from his boyish mind.

But now the wonder came as to whether he _would_ ever meet her. He might, without recognising her, since he did not know who she was.

But Dearest-One might know; such things were part and parcel of the woman's life. His sister, however, was already half way down the slope and he had to run to overtake her.

"Do I know?" she echoed to his question, quite calmly, having had time to recover her serenity. "Wherefore not? Such knowledges have to be kept by someone; so we women guard it. She whom Mirza Gharib-Beg deserted--" she spoke with distinct blame--"was well within the circle of distinction, being both of the royal house and also of the lineage of Sheik Jami, the divine poet--on whom be peace! Therefore she deserved a better fate than to live her life in a House-of-Rest--as I shall live mine," she added with conviction.

"But thou art so young," protested Babar, ever ready to follow any new lead of thought.

Dearest-One flashed out on him in her old way. "Young! One year older than she--so there! She was but a child, and Gharib-Beg, remember, was but two years older." She paused, then added hurriedly: "Did I not tell thee we silly women guarded such trivial knowledge as our lives?"

To judge by Babar's women-folk (one of his many widowed aunts had joined the little camp on a visit--he had endless aunts and he seemed to be a favourite with all--) they guarded other trivial knowledges as their lives also. Babar returning home of an evening would find a regular Turkhi feast including goats' milk cheese fritters, made, of course, after the family recipe, spread out for his delectation, and Dearest-One never forgot to put violet essence in the thick milk. And plenty of sugar, for the lad had a sweet tooth. Then as they sat round the great, pine-log fire at night, Isan-daulet would call for a song; none of those niggling Persian odes, about the Beloved's Eyebrows and a Cup of Wine--the which was forbidden, though many good men fell away from grace and were none the worse for it--not in _this_ world at any rate, and for the next who could tell since the dear Kazi was not there to lay down the law ...

"The Kazi was a saint," interrupted Babar with certainty; "I know it; first because the men who martyred him have all since died. That is one proof. Then he was a wonderfully bold man. Most men have some anxiety or trepidation about them. The Kwaja had not a particle of either, which is also no mean proof of sanct.i.ty."

Old Isan-daulet chuckled. "Then are all my family canonised," she said, "and Paradise will have small peace! But sing, boy, a rattling Turkhoman ballad and bawl it fairly, if thou canst, now-a-days."

But Babar had learnt better than bawling over in Uncle Hussain's camp, and though his grandmother shook her head over his rendering of "Toktamish Khan" still 'twas a fine song with a good stirring chant to it:

The pale white willows grow in the sand, Toktamish Beg.

Choose one to hobble thy horse's leg That thy bay steed stand.

Thy red blood drips on the yellow sand, Toktamish Khan.

Wilt bind his wound, wife of Mirza Jan With thy jewelled hand?

The wound is doleful, the kiss was sweet Toktamish Kull.

Which poison, man! makes thine eyes so dull And thy breath so fleet?

Oh! my bay horse neighed when I did sing, And Mir Jan's wife Swore she would love me all my life And gave me a ring.

Thy steed will find him a rider soon And fair Narghiss Will have a new lover to cuddle and kiss Ere another moon.

But thy mother is old; she has lost her brave Toktamish Khan; Let her carry her sheaf to Death's wide barn And dig her a grave!

The firelight danced on the young face as it sang cheerily. The Khanum, his mother, wept un.o.btrusively at the thought of what she would do if _her_ young brave were to die. Old Isan-daulet beat time with precision; Dearest-One smiled gently; but Nevian-Gokultash--the Heart-of-Stone--held up his finger.

"Hist!" he said, "a horse's steps."

Not one but many. A little detachment of loyalists headed by Kasim Beg, arriving in hot haste with renewed hope!

Babar stood up tall, strong, and threw his wide arms out as if to shake off inaction.

"Whence?" he asked briefly; "East, west, north or south?" There was weariness in the thought, not in the tone. He was ready to fight anywhere for Kings.h.i.+p again, though his heart sank at the futility of it all. Bokhara, Samarkand, Hissar, and half-a-dozen other chief-s.h.i.+ps always changing hands. But this, a message of treaty from Ali Mirza who had held Samarkand since it had dropped from Babar's hand might mean something. So he was in the saddle and off; only to return then, and half-a-dozen other times, despondent, to admit that his star was not yet in the ascendant.

Isan-daulet wearied of waiting at last, and set off herself to Moghulistan to levy troops to aid her grandson in the name of her dead husband. The Khanum went with her, and Dearest-One took the opportunity of retiring with one of her old aunts, to a House-of-Rest.

So Babar was left alone. He would not remain at Khojend, however; he felt that he had already taken too much from the loyalists there, so in a state of irresolution and uncertainty he made for the border land of the Pamirs beyond the White Mountains. There he remained amongst the nomad tribes, perplexed and distracted with the hopelessness of his affairs.

And here, as winter pa.s.sed to spring once more, a saintly Kwaja--also an exile and a wanderer--came to visit him. And having no help to give, no advice to offer to one so down-cast, prayed over him and took his departure much affected.

"And so was I," writes Babar frankly. Doubtless he was; and yet before sunset that very day he must have been out on the hillside, possibly hunting for new tulips in this new country; for he descried a horseman making his way rapidly up the valley.

A horseman!

Within half-an-hour, without an instant's delay, Babar had backed his lean Turkhoman mare and, followed by a leaner troop of such friends as still clung to him (Kasim and Nevian-Gokultash of course amongst the number) was galloping for Marghinan (the place where they remove the stone from apricots and put in chopped almonds!). For a message had been sent by the governor of the town to say he was ready to give it up to its rightful owner, and would hope for forgiveness for past offences.

It was then sunset, and Marghinan lay more than a hundred miles away as the crow flies. All that night till noon next day the little band rode fiercely on. On those wild hills there was no road to speak of; one could but follow the water-courses as the streams sought their level. At noon next day they drew bridle for the first time. They had not come far, or fast, yet so hard had been the way that their horses needed rest. Twelve hours to give them a chance, and also, in the close valley of Khojend to secure night time for the first part of the march, and they were off again; this time to let sunrise pa.s.s to sunset and sunset pa.s.s to night before they again drew rein in the grey dawn. Drew rein and looked at each other doubtfully. Yet their goal lay not four miles ahead of them, a shadowy hill crowned by a fort and scarce seen in the half light.

But the doubt was this:

They had ridden for forty-eight hours up hill and down dale, over breakneck precipices and roaring torrents, without ever considering that they had no real warranty for so doing!

The Governor of the town was one who was known to stickle at no crime.

With what confidence then could they unconditionally put themselves in his power?

So at least urged Nevian-Gokultash. Others joined in, and Babar, ever reasonable, saw cogency in the doubt, and ordered a halt for consideration.

Out in the dawn, the horses, heads down, taking a nibble of gra.s.s between heaving breaths, the sweat running down from their polished backs, the tired troopers, too tired to dismount, arguing _pros_ and _cons_ wearily, until Babar rising in his stirrups, showed tall, straight, strong, commanding.

"Gentlemen!" he said. "Our reflections are not without foundation, but we have been too late in making them. We have now ridden three nights and two days without sleep or rest. Neither horse nor man has strength left. There is no possibility of retreating, since there is no place of safety to which we _could_ retreat. Having come so far we must proceed. Therefore let us go forward remembering that nothing happens save by the will of G.o.d. Right turn, gentlemen! Forward!"